19 Goals for 2019: Six Months’ Progress

At the start of the year, I wrote myself 19 goals for 2019. Most of them are ongoing, so I thought I’d write a progress post to keep myself accountable and remind myself of any that I may have forgotten! Here’s how I’ve been getting on, six months in.

1. Overpay the mortgage

We’ve taken our foot off the gas a little bit with this one. In the past few months we’ve had some big payments like car insurances and tax, home insurance, holiday deposits and final payments to make. It’s felt like one thing after another and something has had to give, so it’s been this. Having said that, I did alter our direct debit last year to build in an overpayment of just over £50 per month anyway, and we’ve still been making that, so technically we are still on track with this. Just not quite as amazingly as I’d like!

2. Declutter

I’m still going with this, slowly but surely. Just yesterday I put out a bag of bits and pieces for a charity collection, and that bookcase in B’s room that I mentioned in the last update is slowly but surely reducing in clutter. It still has a long way to go, but it’s getting there!

I’ve also been selling some things on Facebook Marketplace, which is my new favourite thing! I’ve got a whole corner of my living room back by selling the Jumperoo, and I’ve sold some of my old nursing clothes, too. It’s been great to get rid of some unwanted things but also gain a bit of cash, too.

3. Meal plan

I’ve been doing this pretty solidly for the past several weeks, but I fell off the meal planning wagon last week and it’s had me all out of sorts for the past seven days! I’ll get back on it for the coming week as it makes the food shop a lot easier, too. We’ve been trying lots of different meals recently as we’ve adopted a more flexitarian diet. My two favourite cook books are still undoubtedly my Slow Cooker cook book* and Jamie’s Superfood Family Classics*. Lots of delicious meals in both!

4. Make our house a home

I keep looking around our boring living room and thinking about how terrible I am at this! We don’t have any shelves or picture frames on the walls. I think I need to just get on and do something with it. Or perhaps we’ll just end up selling the house in five or ten years’ time, as a ‘blank canvas’!

I have, however, made a nice little seating area out in the garden, which is probably more important, with the summer months ahead. We bought a lovely garden sofa, some cushions and a throw, and put up some pretty festoon lights. It’s a really nice spot to be able to sit and watch the girls play.

5. Own being a stay at home mum

I think I’m pretty much there with this. I’ve accepted that I’m not going to be a perfect mother (I don’t think anyone ever is!) but I’m quite prepared to describe myself as a stay at home parent (or even a housewife!) without an ounce of shame.

6. Visit the library every week

We were doing better with this earlier in the year because we were going to a Tiny Talk class every week, then popping along to the library afterwards. But we’ve had to stop that class as it clashes with M’s preschool sessions, and we don’t have a library within walking distance. I’m trying to avoid using the car for short journeys, so we haven’t been for a while. We try to pop in to the main library in the Forum in Norwich when we’re in the city, but we’re probably only going about once a month now, rather than once per week.

We do have a library van that comes into our village every couple of weeks, so perhaps I need to make more of an effort to pay attention to the timetable for that!

7. Create a weekly routine

Our routine has evolved since my last update, as M has started going to preschool three afternoons per week. So now Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays revolve around a bit of housework followed by getting her to preschool on time! On Thursdays we still go to Hartbeeps classes, which we love, then Wednesday is our ‘free’ day to chill out or go out for the day. It’s also usually when I do my Pondering Playtime activity with the girls.

It’s all about to descend into chaos, with Matthew off and no preschool or Hartbeeps for the summer holidays!

8. Stop utilising the floordrobe

I have turned the bottom draw of my bedside table into a place to put can-be-worn-again items. The only trouble is, I forgot about it and couldn’t find one of my favourite tops for over a week! So I’m still failing at this and the floordrobe is still in existence. At least the cleaner comes once per fortnight, which means that it all gets regularly cleared away as I couldn’t bear the shame of her seeing it!

9. Use the slow cooker at least once per week

I’m completely winning at this goal as the slow cooker is used around twice per week on average, sometimes three times. Now that we’ve eating more vegetarian meals, my new slow cooker favourite is a vegetable lasagne (yes, in the slow cooker!), but my favourite slow cooker cookery book is still this one, by BBC Good Food*.

10. Keep on top of the washing

This is still going pretty well. I’m still all about the Kon Mari fold, and our drawers are all looking nice and tidy. It’s great being able to find things easily. I’m also enjoying that fact that it’s a bit warmer and sunnier now, so I can utilise the washing line more, saving money and the environment by not using the tumble dryer so much.

11. Sort out B’s nursery

Poor B’s nursery had turned back into a bit of a dumping ground again. I think because it was our spare/storage room before she came along, we’ve kept that mentality. I had a couple of hours having a good sort out in there with my mum a few weeks ago, though, and it’s feeling much better.

I just need to finish off that bookcase (of the decluttering target!) and re-sort the built in wardrobes, which contain all of the girls’ crafting things, and some of my old teaching resources. That will probably require pulling literally everything out and spending a day sorting through it all, so I think I might have to get Matthew to take the girls out for a Daddy-daughters day during the summer holiday, so that I can get it all sorted without M trying to paint/craft/stamp/glue everything while I’m doing it!

12. Have the front door repainted

In a crazy moment a few weeks ago, I decided that I was going to do this myself! I even bought myself a hand sander to prep the door. I haven’t got any further than that, though, so we’ll see if it ever happens!

13. Have my hair cut regularly

This is still happening! My hairdresser, Lucy, is fab. Have you seen the Q&A about postpartum hair loss that she did for me? She also told me last time I saw her, that I’ve inspired her to overpay her mortgage, and she’s set up a direct debit to do so! How great is that?!

I do need to make an appointment to have my hair recoloured, though. My balayage has grown out more than I would like, but I’ve been putting off making at appointment as I haven’t wanted to pay for it! But the last time I had my hair dyed was before Christmas, so I think I’m going to pause writing for a moment and make myself an appointment now.

Done. It’s just as well I did, as the first available appointment isn’t until September!

14. Make Pondering Playtime weekly

I’m still not as organised as I’d like to be with this, but I have kept up posting play and learning ideas, weekly. I’ve been trying to put the emphasis on activities that don’t take much forward planning or time to set up, as frankly that’s exactly where I am at the moment! I hope you’re still enjoying my posts, regardless!

15. Get in front of the camera

I’m still not doing very well with this one. I think I need to get Beth Moseley to do another photo shoot with us! I love Matthew to bits but bless him, he isn’t a natural photographer!

16. Have monthly date nights

It’s still really hard for Matthew and I to have date nights as B is still demanding quite a lot of my evening (and my boobs!), but I do feel that we’re trying to give each other more attention, even if we can’t have proper ‘dates’. It’s our wedding anniversary later in the month and I’ve asked my parents to look after the girls, so it will be nice for us to have some proper time alone (although it will be a lunch date rather than a dinner one, due to aforementioned B-related reasons!)

17. Reorganise and maintain clothes storage

This is improving but still not quite ‘there’. We have built in wardrobes in our bedroom, which is great, but I don’t really feel that the space is being utilised to its full potential. Unfortunately, I don’t really know how to rectify this issue! Perhaps I need to do some more research. If anyone has any low-cost hacks for redesigning built in wardrobes, then please let me know!

18. Get out of the house more

Now that M has started Preschool, this is pretty much taken care of on three days of the week! Add to that the (mostly) beautiful weather that we’ve been having, and it’s been easy to get outside every day, even if we’ve just been chilling out in the garden.

I’ve still been using the One Second Everyday app to record snippets of our outside time to keep us accountable. You can watch our One Second Everyday video for the first half of this year, below. I’m so excited to see the completed video at the end of the year!

19. Be kind to myself

I’ve kind of turned a little corner with this one! Last month, I paid to have a style analysis done. I took the most unflattering photographs of myself, then sent them off to an online stylist, who emailed me back with tons of information about my body shape, colouring and style personality. I was also given information about the best styles of clothes to look for, to compliment my body.

I’ve only made a couple of new purchases so far, but it’s made me so much more confident in my shopping choices. Knowing what to look for has prevented me from having a changing room meltdown where I’ve felt like nothing fits and everything makes me look washed out. I even bought myself a pair of shorts last week, AND wore them out in public! That’s probably the first time I’ve worn shorts in public since childhood, and I felt good.

I know it’s only one aspect of being kind to myself, and I have a lot of other things to tackle, but it’s been a great start.

Have you set any goals or resolutions for this year? How are they going? Let me know in the comments!